Marriage Without A Hitch

The Fine Points Of Wedding: A Tasteful Ring, Handwritten Invitations And No Rented Museums.

June 15, 1988|By Michael Kilian.

WRITING FROM NEW YORK — Alas, Sylvester ``Rambo`` Stallone and Cornelia ``Deb of the Decade``

Guest are not getting married this year. More`s the pity, especially for poor Mrs. Guest, who doubtless would have been extremely touched to have all those Rambo millions sloshing around in the ancestral family coffers-though I don`t know what she would have done with the Hollywood variety of wedding gift, which runs to carved jade fondue pots and gilded ceiling mirrors.

But simply everybody else seems to be getting married at the moment, some even for the first time. If you`re about to take this momentous step, I would urge upon you the utmost circumspection and reflection. After all, marriage is as significant an event in your life as your coming-out party and the Yale-Princeton game. You surely will want the proceedings to be Truly Tasteful.

The Betrothal: Whom you choose should be high on your list of nuptial concerns. After all, you`re going to be seen at dinner parties together.

Love, of course, should be a factor, in marriages as much as in liaisons. Even Prince Charles said on the occasion of his betrothal, ``Yes, we`re in love, whatever that means,`` although I`m not sure he`s quite yet got the idea.

But, as I`m sure his mum told him, you mustn`t love just anyone. It`s important to stick to someone within your own class, if only so you`ll both agree where the dessert forks go. Sunny von Bulow married beneath her class, and that marriage didn`t work out.

A POINTED CASE

As a mere UMC (upper-middle-classer), I once fell in love with a UC

(upper-classer). I can`t remember her name-Mimsy, or something-and from Smith, or maybe Endicott. In any event, my father warned me off, saying,

``She`ll never understand why you can`t leave the office on Thursday afternoons to go sailing.`` He was wrong, as I`m now able to go sailing any weekday I please. Unfortunately, Mimsy married someone else long ago-a deckhand, I think. Named Chip.

(For your information, the dessert forks are placed horizontally above the plate, right next to the catsup bottle.)

The Ring: As Liz Taylor has somehow failed to learn despite all the practice she`s had at getting engaged, those enormous big-as-the-Ritz diamond rings are not only considered vulgar and declasse; they`re often mistaken for paste. What`s best are tastefully diminutive diamond rings that have been handed down from grandmum or great-grandmum (just make damn sure great-grandmum wasn`t a car dealer).

The Announcement: The only appropriate place for anyone`s wedding announcement to appear, of course, is in the Sunday New York Times (such as the tastefully succinct one for Caroline Kennedy that noted only in passing that her father had been president of the United States). These are run free, but the Times is excruciatingly selective.

It will help you to get in if you have at least two residences and one is in a posh resort. A ``Mr. and Mrs. Osgood Beemerbunk of Bayonne, N.J.`` won`t do, but a ``Mr. and Mrs. Osgood Beemerbunk of Bayonne, N.J., and the Wisconsin Dells`` might be accepted (on a Sunday when no one else in the Western Hemisphere is getting married).

The Invitations: The only Truly Tasteful invitations are those that are written by hand. The Truly Tasteful class is well aware that anyone can have absolutely anything printed on fancy paper. A lot of declasse department stores advertise January clearance sales that way, and you don`t want your daughter mistaken for a marked-down Anne Klein II.

Wedding Clothes: All bride`s dresses are essentially the same, though you should keep in mind that the more frilly and elaborate you get, the more you`ll look like a Spanish cabaret dancer. Grooms and ushers should simply remember that a gentleman never wears a tuxedo before 6 o`clock and that a gentlemen never, ever, wears a frilly shirt.

The Honeymoon: Pick a place that`s discreet, expensive, hard to get to and, perforce, exclusive. Avoid any place that advertises heart-shaped bathtubs-not to speak of no tubs at all.

The Wedding: The British royal family seems to have a thing for big, splashy church weddings, but I find them a bit outre.

For many LCs (less-than-upper-classers), however, a big wedding is important because it`s likely the most important event in their lives and because it presents their only chance to show their peers they`re not on unemployment.

A CASE IN POINT

There was just such an LC wedding the other week, joining the daughter of New York`s Gayfryd and Saul Steinberg with the son of Mr. and Mrs. Laurence

(CBS) Tisch. There were scads of those truly tacky LC rented limousines and more than 62,000 tulips and roses costing some $1 million. Several zillion candles were used, dripping (mon Dieu) wax over everyone`s finery.

For the reception, they rented New York`s Metropolitan Museum of Art (UC J. Carter Brown of Washington`s National Gallery of Art blanched when he heard that), trumpeters frolicked everywhere and the ushers carried walkie-talkies. The champagne for the 500 guests cost $942 a case, and the total tab came to something like $3 million.

How can I call such a wedding LC?

My dears, money can buy finger sandwiches, but class is not for sale. Certainly not by the case. -